What would happen if a six mile wide meteor slams into northern mexico at 6 miles a second?

Answer 1

Assume a stony spherical asteroid with a radius of 3 miles (4800 m) and the density of dry sand 1800 kg/m^3. This gives a total mass of 8.24E14 kg.
6 miles/sec = 9600 m/s...the total impact energy is 1/2m*v^2 = 3.8E22 joules or 9000 GIGAtons of TNT. This is the same amount of energy released in a magnitude 11 earthquake; major mechanical destruction in the Western Hemisphere.

This is also a climate shattering event. Enough ejecta is thrown into sub-orbital trajectories to superheat the atmosphere over a large section of the western hemisphere as it renters as literally billions of small meteroids, essentially turning much of north and south america into a several hundred degree furnace creating thousand mile scale firestorms.

Enough small ejecta is hurled into the atmosphere as to block out sunlight from the surface of the earth for much of the time for months. Most large animal life starves, most plants die too. Cave ecologies and deep ocean life is almost unaffected, though dramatic rainfall pattern shifts impact caves, and a decrease in dead matter drifting to the bottom of the ocean makes life tough there. Some small land life manages to eke out a meager existence, though most dies.
This is the same estimated size as the hypothesis 'dinosaur killer' asteroid event of the K-T boundary.

Answer 2

Chuck Norris would step up with a baseball bat, and knock it back into outer space for an intergalactic home run!

Seriously, though - you just described the dinosaur killer. I'm old enough to remember a time before they were this certain about it. When I was in school and they talked about dinosaurs, it was always a big mystery as to why they all seemed to die out "overnight."

Then the hypothesis of an impact event took some weight, but wasn't largely accepted until the crater was found at the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.

If this happened again today, you could kiss everything goodbye. Humanity would have the slimmest chance of surviving. I wouldn't bet on it, personally. Life would make it through the event (it did once already) but only the smallest, hardiest creatures would.

Mr. Quark's example stated the blast as being 9000 gigatons of TNT. Nuclear weapons are measured in terms of megatons, with a 200 megaton bomb being pretty huge. This would be 0.2 gigatons. It would take 18,000 of these big nuclear bombs to equal this one impact.

Hiroshima wasn't even 100 kilotons, for further comparison.

Answer 3

Six Miles Per Second is about 21,600 Miles Per Hour.

In other words we are talking about the largest meteorite hit in many, many years. This meteorite would probably penetrate the Earth's crust and vaporize everything within 900 Miles of the impact point. Enormous dust clouds would rise into the atmosphere and circle the globe causing night like conditions for many weeks. We can imagine multiple earthquakes and tidal waves which would cause havoc to all coastal cities and populations. This event is not something that would be pleasant to endure.

Answer 4

If that is the scenario that killed off all the dinosaurs (likely, but not proven), it does not necessarily mean all mankind will disappear. Remnants of humans might survive in caves and underground chambers, living on rats and insects. But of course, life as we know it would end.

The dinosaurs were too specialised in their habits. Plant eaters could not survive when the plants died, and their predators could not survive without the large plant eaters around. Humans can eat all kinds of garbage when the stakes are down. It is believed that the species that survived the blast 65 million years ago were of the kinds that could get by on dead and decaying food sources.

Answer 5

It happened sixty million years ago, dinosaurs and most mammals were wiped off the face of the Earth, the same thing would happen to living things today.

Answer 6

Well, I'm not exactly certain, but I'm pretty sure you could say goodbye to Canada, United States, Mexico, and South America.

Answer 7

I would think a global catastrophe just like what happened to the dinosaurs.

Answer 8

happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago same thing would happen to us if one hits

Answer 9

Doesn't matter where it hits, if it hits the earth, we're all goners. Those near the impact site would get a quick, merciful death, the rest of us, a lingering one.